Becoming (in)visible with VR

The cantons of the concordat Romandie-Bern-Tessin have launched another campaign on the subject of safety. It aims to remind pedestrians walking along the roadside to wear visible and light-coloured clothing - a virtual reality experience illustrates this at the Comptoir Suisse in Lausanne.

For their second joint street prevention campaign "Be permanently visible", the French-speaking and Ticino police have turned to the company Digital Kingdom from Vevey. The team was commissioned to develop a virtual reality application in which players take on the role of pedestrians. The aim is to make them realise how important visibility is in road traffic.

In one case, the player wears dark clothing in virtual reality. He is not recognised by drivers and is eventually hit by a car. In a second case, the player will appear in light-coloured clothing. In this way, he can be recognised by road users at an early stage and thus save his life.

Testing at the Comptoir Suisse in Lausanne

The virtual reality experience will be presented at the Comptoir Suisse in Lausanne, which began on Friday 14 September and runs until Sunday 23 September. Throughout the event, visitors will have the opportunity to test this application at the stand of the French-speaking cantonal police forces and the Cantonal Police of Ticino. Two virtual reality installations will be available so that young and old alike can discover this new concept of prevention.

The police forces of French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino were supplied with all the equipment needed to set up the virtual reality game by Digital Kingdom. They can use it at various events. The application is available in all three national languages.

This campaign was financed by the Road Safety Fund (FVS). The game is part of a broad-based campaign to raise public awareness. "Made Visible" is a national road safety campaign on the subject of visibility, under the responsibility of the TCS with funding from the FVS.

Last autumn, a VR application was developed in collaboration with Road Safety Zurich as a prevention tool in the Traffic instruction used in Switzerland.

Source: 1815.ch / polizeiwallis / Youtube